


Phones on the Table

by orphan_account



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt, M/M, Past Relationship(s), college depression, dan and his stupid law degree
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-30
Updated: 2017-10-30
Packaged: 2019-01-26 16:15:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12561248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Love and work are often at ends with each other - as Dan found out, choosing an education at Harvard Law School over his boyfriend has heartbreaking consequences for his happiness.





	Phones on the Table

Dan remembers a time when he'd look at his boyfriend and smile with glints of happiness in his eyes. It was as if the world was full of colour in those moments. Dan's brown hair used to be neatly styled, immaculately clean, and slightly shiny. His shirts would be buttoned all the way up and ironed to an impossibly smooth degree. He'd even tuck them into tailored trousers and carefully choose a tie from an extensive collection to accompany the outfit. In essence, he wanted to put his best foot forward for when he'd see his boyfriend, Phil. Those were special moments. But that was when they still lived in the same, small town.

Now, Dan sits on a hard mattress placed lazily on a rusty iron frame in a college dorm. The winter air trapped between the grey cinderblock walls of the claustrophobic bedroom feels thinner than the fraying silk of his old dress shirts. He bothers to neither iron nor button them all the way up nowadays. Combing and cleaning his hair from its constantly dirty and blackening colour became a protracted bore long ago. It'd be a waste of valuable time in the morning when he's usually rushing to complete an arduous assignment for his tax law tutor. He's long since abandoned hope of fixing his droopy eyes on those mornings and accepts them as a permanent affliction.

Apart from a cheap chipboard desk, the old bed, and a small, rickety bedside table, the room is bare and barren. The only source of light comes from a dusty desk lamp and his phone which he leaves beside his bed. The black device frequently lights up only to remind him to complete his glossary of legal definitions. It's overdue by a few weeks.

_Well Dan, this is what you chose to do. This is what you wanted to do. Law. So quit_ _complaining._

As he lets out a resigned _sigh_ into the cold, lifeless room, he remembers back to the day he left Phil.

It was a little more than a year ago during the warmth of summer.

 

 _The golden sun rays beam down on the two as they lie on the cool, vibrant, green grass of a_ _park side by side. The suburban town they share is small yet cozy in a way; these little comfortable spots are scattered throughout it, like safe havens from the thick summer air._ _Yet Dan could feel his heart thump in his chest with anxiety as if it were about to jump out of_ _him._

_“Phil,” he starts cautiously, almost at a whisper, “there's something I need to tell you.” It_ _takes a few moments for Phil to respond as Dan's voice cuts through the comfortable silence between them in an unnatural way._

_“Hmm and what'd that be?” he yawns, a smile still on his face which is partially hidden by locks_ _of his chestnut hair. The peaceful sight of him shoots barrages of guilty pangs through Dan's chest._

_“I got accepted_ _, ” he breathes out, bowing his head culpably as Phil's face scrunches up, eyebrows knitting in momentary confusion, “into Harvard law school.”_

_ “ _ _Dan, that's amazing, ” Phil excitedly spits out, moving closer to the other boy to hug him before shooting questions at him. “When did you find out? Which courses are you taking? Have you seen their campus? Are you gonna board? When are you gonna move to-”_

_Phil pauses._

_He slowly begins to retract his arms into his lap, assuming an upright position at a distance from_ _Dan as realisation sets in._

_“I'm... Moving to America next week, actually,” Dan carefully lets out._

_ “ _ _Dan, when were you planning on telling me?” Phil questions, “offers have been coming_ _out for weeks, months even.” He tries to hide from his tone the disappointment in the neglect he feels. The hurt has already spread across his eyes as he feels salty tears well up behind them. He turns his head to look at something else. Anything else._

_“I just didn't know how, I guess. I'm sorry, law is my future,” Dan explained carefully, desperately rummaging through his head for softer words. “I love you, but I need to think about my opportunities and future and this-”_

_“Just spit it out Dan. Don't sugar coat it. No flowery garbage. Give it to me straight.”_

_“Alright, fine. Here it is: school is the most important thing in my life. I got into bloody Harvard Law and I'm going to take the offer,” Dan spits unrelentingly, “I won't let you hold me back from that. I care about you, believe me I do. But I got things to do with my life.”_

_Bitter silence._

_He turns to face Phil who is shocked with his jaw hanging underneath his mouth._

_“So you tell me you care... But do you actually? Huh? Do you? Sure doesn't bloody seem like it,” he interrogated, “I don’t know what else to say to you.”_

_“Of course you don't know what to say. You're too selfish to even let me go. You knew this_ _would happen. Stop being such a child and grow the hell up.”_

 

Dan still remembers the hurt on Phil's face after that last sentence, how his eyes puffed up with hot tears and blemished his skin. He remembers awkwardly shifting in his place, wanting to comfort the boy but reminding himself strongly that he'd just made an enemy of him. Dan remembers the bitter sweet moment a week later when he boarded his flight, leaving behind his broken relationship and trying to bury it before a false smile when his parents asked him proudly 'are you excited?' He also remembers the judgmental looks from flight attendants and passengers alike as he exited a cramped cabin bathroom after half an hour of spilling tears down the sink.

It's over a year since that summer day, yet still, at night, before he goes to sleep, Dan leaves his phone on the bedside table. Perhaps he's desperate for something more.

_Don’t act like you don't miss it. The hugs, the warmth. The love… being important to someone,_ _actually mattering. Don't be stubborn._

He's hopeful that one day Phil will return any one of the hundreds of voice messages and texts he’s sent over the years. Dan reaches to the phone and scrolls to Phil's contact. The last message he sent before giving up several months ago.

_Are you ever going to_ _let me talk to you? read 14/05/2017_

A long, tortured _sigh_ escapes his lips as he breaks the silence in his room, talking to no one. “What would you even do if he ever called back? Say 'sorry' and expect him to immediately forgive you?” he continues to question, filling up the empty room with noise as his voice, booming and abandoning the embarrassing thought of others hearing him. “He probably doesn't even think about you, why should he?”

_This is just pathetic, ritual routine, Dan. He's not going to call back‑_

The phone in his hands vibrates suddenly, a banner appearing at the top of the screen. It indicates a text message with a photo. Dan's heart skips a beat, breath catching in his throat.

He very quickly performs the subconscious motions; swipe at the notification and unlock the phone. He doesn’t even stop to check who sent it until he opens it.

It's his friend, Charlie; he's taking his sabbatical in Peru. An image of his happy figure comes up on the screen. The sky is ocean blue and mountains stand proudly in the background, capped with crowns of snow and ice. A railway extends from under Charlie's hiking pack off into the distance of the valley towards the mountains. All the while, Dan sits in his boring enclosure, going nowhere and feeling sentimental about a person long gone from his world. One that took much of its light with him. It's degrading and soul crushing.

He disappointedly bows his head and sits for hours on the bed, missing an important lecture but finding no reason to care.

As the sun sets and the room becomes colder than its own stone, Dan decisively rises from the awful bed. He unplugs his phone and feels his hands clutch it tight enough to break it. He crosses the dull lacquer floor to the window, winding it open with the rusty crank. He lets out a soft cry as he hurls the device out the window into the overgrown garden. It's lost in the darkness, where Dan knows he'll never find it. A tear escapes his eye as he thinks back to his final words to Phil, and how he won't ever see him again. It almost feels better to give up the little hope he had than to continue holding it laboriously with the knowledge that such hope is futile and the chance of it being fulfilled fleeting.

He hated leaving his phone on the bedside table; watching it at night became a beacon of hope that never delivered a result. The charging cable became his life support. However, Dan still finds himself trawling the garden for a little black device the next morning. Simply because at night, before he goes to sleep, he's always left his phone on the bedside table.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey everyone, so I wrote this earlier in the year as an application to uni for a creative writing course. I decided not to apply in the end because I think writing is more of a hobby... hence why I'm on here more and more. I wrote the characters with D+P in mind but would have changed the names to submit for uni lol


End file.
